


Ten Drabbles

by Severina



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-11-06
Updated: 2004-11-06
Packaged: 2017-10-10 15:08:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/101101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten drabbles, various seasons</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ten Drabbles

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LJ's popfly, as a thank-you. Prompts supplied by popfly.

**1.  
Timeframe:** Season One

_ How many times can I cry all night   
Before you know I'm for real?  
~ "Out of my Mind", Patti Rothberg_

He should be on top of the world. He stood up for himself. He's been crowned King of Babylon. And he stole a trick -- not a particularly hot trick, but a trick nonetheless -- out from under Brian's nose. Or dick, as the case may be.

Fucking some drooling admirer with a fetish for a cheap crown was never what he wanted.

Brian has always been what he wants.

By morning, he'll have come to his senses. He'll redirect his sadness into determination, or anger, or his usual cocky relentlessness.

But for now, he just needs to wallow for awhile.

 

**2.  
Timeframe:** Season Three

_ I sit and watch your flowers wilting in the kitchen   
~ "Get You In", Better Than Ezra_

Justin never wanted romance.

Oh, he thought he did. Except chocolate kind of gives him a headache, and after a while one concerto for violin sounds pretty much like the next.

He never needed someone to buy him flowers. But that doesn't mean he can't buy them for himself. If he wants to. He thinks the lilies will fit in with the loft décor just fine.

Brian grunts when he sees them, and Justin is the only one who bothers to refresh the water. But Brian doesn't mock them or try to toss them out. Sometimes it's the little things.

 

**3.  
Timeframe:** Post Season Four

_Broken doll baby and she says that love's a waste  
~ "It's All Right, It's OK", Leah Andreone_

No matter how often Brian buries his head in the pillow, or turns up the music on his walkman, or retreats to the shower and the pounding lull of the spray, he never succeeds in drowning out the verbal sparring of his parents.

Years later, watching Justin pack his things for California, he knows everything he heard was a lie. Love might be frustrating and complicated and irritating, but it sure as fuck wasn't a waste.

"Come here," he says, reaching out to catch Justin's wrist.

He pulls his lover close. He'll show him... the only way he knows how.

 

**4.  
Timeframe:** Post Season Four

_She never mentions the word 'addiction'  
In certain company   
~ "She Talks to Angels", The Black Crowes_

Brian says he wants to see Gus more, and Lindsay is more grateful for that than anyone can ever know.

There are pottery classes and gallery showings and GLC meetings, all of them lacking something that she refuses to name "Mel". There is even a date, stilted conversation over overcooked steak, before she bails mid-sentence in a stream of understated blue silk. Finally she simply closes and locks the door, and draws her knees up to her chin, and tries to fade into orange stripes and nothingness. But the eyes of Sam's portrait still seem to follow her around the room.

 

**5.  
Timeframe:** Season Four

_ Baby come home   
I miss the sound of the door   
~ "Come on Home", Everything But the Girl_

Brian doesn't know when he started watching the clock. He only knows that a revolver is slick and heavy in one's hand, and that there is a darkness behind Justin's eyes that he can't reach, and that when he closes his eyes he sees flashing lights and cold grey cement and hears the crackle-hiss of the police radio echoing off the walls. He tosses back another shot and knows that he won't get drunk. He can't get drunk.

The squeak of the dented metal door sliding painfully on its track is the most pleasant sound Brian has heard in weeks.

 

**6.  
Timeframe:** Post Season Five

_I drink good coffee every morning   
~ "I Just Don't Think I'll Ever Get Over You", Colin Haye_

"Pour me a cup," Justin says as he dashes past Brian.

"Pour your own," Brian says, not even looking up from his briefcase.

Justin is, as usual, running late. Brian watches with side-glances from beneath lowered lids as Justin dances across the loft, doing seven things at once, and marvels that they've even reached this place, prom nights and mayoral elections and trips to California long part of the past.

He pours a second cup of the finest Peruvian blend, just as Justin knows he will. And he wonders when they got so predictable, and why he likes it so much.

 

**7.  
Timeframe:** Post Season Three

_Nightswimming deserves a quiet night   
~ _"Nightswimming", REM__

Brian stands at the window and thinks that if he concentrates very hard, he can hear the noise from the celebrations on Liberty Avenue drifting across the night air. 4am and the party down there seemed like it was never going to end.

He draws deep on his cigarette and watches the shadows and smoke dance around the empty loft. One hundred thousand dollars in debt repeats on an endless loop in his brain. Stockwell has been defeated, but nothing has changed.

Justin's arms snake warmly around his waist. A groggy voice murmurs, "Come back to bed."

_Everything_ has changed.

 

**8.  
Timeframe:** Season Four

_I think I'm going for a walk now  
I feel a little unsteady   
~ _"Untouchable Face", Ani DiFranco__

When the sound of his angry footsteps echoing on the stairs has faded, I slide into my coat and ease the door open. Set the alarm, pull the door closed, and lean against the metal. The night air will do me good. Just need to rest for a moment.

Something glints on the landing by the elevator, and I find myself bending to retrieve it, turning it over in my fingers. Just a tiny piece of hard plastic.

Like something that might fall from a cracked DVD case.

I curl my fingers around its sharp edges and relish the pain.

 

**9.  
Timeframe:** Season One

_Hands touch, eyes meet  
Sudden silence, sudden heat   
~ "Not That Girl", Original cast recording of Wicked_

Logically, I know that the music is still playing. Around us, half-naked bodies still gyrate under flashing disco lights. The thump of the bass echoes in the distance, but I'm mesmerized by pale skin slick with sweat and sprinkled with falling glitter. I tug him onto the dance floor and slide against him, bend my knees and sway, can't resist letting my hand rest on the nape of his neck, circle with him before finding his lips and pressing in close. Breathe deep and hold the sigh inside.

There is no way this boy is going to Dartmouth.

 

**10.  
Timeframe:** Post Season Four

_I never thought you were the letter writing type   
~ _"If I Wrote You", Dar Williams__

The first letter arrives written on stationery that probably cost more than a weeks pay at his old diner salary. When he questions Brian, he is told that it is simply "economically prudent" to use up the paper left lying around the loft. The letters stop for a few weeks.

Justin wisely keeps his mouth shut when they resume. He frames the photo of Brian and Gus. And when the unassuming "I love you" shows up at the end of a letter after he's been in Los Angeles for 5 months, he just smiles. Because he always knew it anyway.


End file.
